Stop and Smell the -
by Vol lady
Summary: A few moments of – something. You can decide which brother is which.


Stop and Smell the -

"Well, what do you think?" he asked.

His brother looked at it, frowning. "I don't know. What is it?"

"I found it out in the road on the way home."

His other brother joined them and looked. "I don't know what it is either. Where did you find it?"

"About a mile outside of town."

"Why didn't you take it into town?"

"I didn't feel like going back."

His brother leaned in, looking closer. "Darned if I know what it is. I've never seen anything like it."

"Neither have I," his other brother said. "Maybe you ought to just take it back and leave it where you found it."

"Yeah, maybe somebody lost it."

"Maybe somebody lost it intentionally."

He looked closer, too. "You don't think it was alive once, do you?"

"Sure doesn't look like it."

"If it was, it wasn't on this planet."

He looked at both his brothers. "You don't really think it dropped out of the sky, do you?"

"I don't know," his brother said. "I don't know what's up there."

"I've never been up there either," his other brother said.

"Maybe Mother or Audra – "

"Oh, I wouldn't show this to them," his other brother said.

"Why not?"

"Well, it kinda looks – nasty."

"Nasty?"

His other brother sighed. His brother picked up on what his other brother said. "If I was to leave a cow pie out in the sun without any rain for about a year – "

"I've seen plenty of cow pies of all ages and they don't look like this," he said.

"Maybe a really sick cow," his other brother said.

"How do you know that's not what it is?" his brother asked.

He suddenly straightened away from it.

"Why did you bring it in, anyway?" his brother asked.

"Because of this," he said and turned it over.

There was a shiny object embedded in the middle of it, something that looked like glass or crystal.

"Now, that's interesting," his brother said. "You think maybe some cow ate glass and left this all behind?"

"I doubt it," his other brother said. "This almost looks like – "

"A diamond," he said.

His brothers looked at him. "I don't think cows eat diamonds either," his other brother said. "More likely this is just a piece of glass that was lying on the ground when whatever the rest of this was left with it."

"Why don't we have Yankee take this apart and get whatever that is out of there?" his brother said. "Then we can figure out what it is."

"If it's a diamond, it's a really big one," he said. "What do you think it's worth?"

"Nothing," his other brother said. "If that's a diamond, I'll drink the San Juaquin River."

"If it's a diamond, I'll draw all the water for you," he said.

Their mother came in, saw the item in question lying on the table and immediately made a ghastly face. "What is _that_ doing on my good furniture?"

"We're not sure what it is," he said.

"You can't tell what _that_ is?" she said. "I need to take you for glasses."

"Well, there's that shiny thing in the middle of it," his brother said.

She looked closely at it. "What do you think it is?"

"Not a diamond," his other brother said.

"Well, whatever it is, get it off my table and out of my living room," she said. "Have you all reverted to ten-year-olds?"

He picked it up in his gloved hand as he and his brothers all chuckled. They headed for the front door as their mother headed for the kitchen and some cleaning supplies.

Outside he began to carry it toward the blacksmith shop, to have it broken apart so they could get the "diamond" out, but he dropped it. It broke apart on its own. The shiny thing fell out and lay by itself. They looked down on it. They bent lower. They looked closer.

The shiny thing began to move.

They jumped. "What the – " he said.

The shiny thing slowly sprouted something like a leg.

His brother stood upright, and then his other brother did, too. "It's a snail," his brother said.

The snail began to move out of the remains of whatever the rest of it was.

"That's a different color shell than I've ever seen," he said.

"It is kinda pretty," his brother said.

He picked the snail up by the shell and moved it to the rose bushes, out of the way so it wouldn't get trampled. Then he rejoined his brothers, and they stood looking at each other.

"We just spent several minutes examining a pile of cow dung and a snail," his other brother said.

"Maybe we have more important things to do," his brother said.

"I don't know," he said. "It is a pretty snail. Sometimes you gotta stop and – " He tried to put words to what he was thinking.

"Smell the snails?" his other brother suggested.

He shrugged. "At least admire something pretty when you see it."

His brother shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

The End


End file.
